The grandfather I never met
Andrew Milton Vance (“Milton”) was born in Cloverport, Kentucky to Alexander Milton Vance and Mary Dean on November 27, 1901. His father Alexander was a civil engineer who worked for the railroad. Milton was the second of four children; sister Violet was one year older and sister Mary Lee and brother Dean were younger.
By age ten they had moved to Pierce City, Missouri, where James and Rachel Scott Vance (Milton’s paternal grandparents) lived. By 1920 they lived in the Highland Park area of Dallas. Milton went to Dallas High School, class of 1918. He then went to Park College in Parkville, Missouri, and taught school in Missouri for two years, then back to Dallas in 1922 to live with his parents at 5010 Worth. Grandmother Rachel, by then widowed, also lived with them.
He attended the University of Texas law school from 1924-1926, where he was an active member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity as well as Phi Delta Phi, Honorary Law Fraternity. He got his law degree in 1926.
In 1927 he worked in Houston as an attorney in the Cotton Exchange Building, living at 701 Colquitt. In 1930 he had a large attorney ad in the Houston phone directory, in the Gulf Building, living in apartments at 1505 Kipling (although the 1930 U.S. Census shows him in Highland Park (Dallas) with his parents, brother Dean and sister Mary Lee). The 1933 Beaumont phone directory lists him at the Goodhue Building.
He married Helen Ruth Heisig of Beaumont on June 12, 1930. They lived in Houston and had son John (my dad) in 1937, but divorced in 1940 when he was 3. The 1940 census shows Milton in Houston living with his parents at age 38.
Milton married Nina Whittington Vance in 1946. Nina Vance became the founder of the Alley Theater in Houston, in part due to Milton’s support while they were married. He installed the electrical and stage lighting in the first theater, provided financial support, and helped in her promotional endeavors . They divorced in 1958.
Although he was mostly absent from son John’s childhood, Milton re-entered his life when he was a teen. He took him to dinner and offered to buy him a car and pay for his college. He helped my dad John attend the University of Texas and obtain three degrees in Mechanical Engineering.
Milton loved dogs. When John was in college, Milton bought two dogs, and gave one to John, a collie they named Hotshot. Milton’s Afghan Hound was named Selim. Milton and Selim were so bonded that when Milton got sick, Selim mourned his absence with wailing, and when Milton died, the dog died soon after.
I never met Milton; he died April 26, 1962, five years before I was born.
His grave is at Memorial Oaks Cemetery in Houston across the street from my boy Brian’s grave. (Brian was born on April 26, 2005 and died March 17, 2015). Milton’s grave is wedged in between two unknowns.
Geneagenie 